Idle thoughts on cinema in 500 words (give or take a few). by Ian Scott Todd

2.14.2012

Silent Nights: It moves!

A
screengrab from a somewhat dazzling tracking shot in D. W. Griffith’s Orphans
of the Storm (1922), a shot made
all the more striking considering that a) Griffith’s Way Down East, made only two years earlier, contains virtually
no camera movement whatsoever and b) Orphans of the Storm is otherwise pretty dull stuff; Griffith’s best
and most interesting films are grounded in an American idiom that doesn’t
really translate here to a costume drama set during the French Revolution.

But
about that camera movement: to my knowledge, Griffith employs a few panning and
tracking shots in Birth of a Nation (1914), and (if I’m remembering correctly; it’s been a few years) Intolerance
(1916) sports some quite
impressive crane shots during the Babylon sequences and some tracking shots
during the climactic race with the train, but camera movement virtually
disappears in Way Down East,
and there’s not even very much to speak of in Orphans.But
on the rare occasions when the camera does move in this film, things suddenly come to life, and we get the
feeling that we’re moving through the space of Griffith’s opulent sets rather
than just gazing at them like paintings.In this shot, which takes place during a bout of post-revolutionary
revelry, the camera tracks backward and with some speed, as if participating in
the dance along with the revelers.It’s a rare moment of excitement and vibrancy in a film that is
decidedly not one of Griffith’s best—though it does sport Lillian and Dorothy
Gish, playing (adopted) sisters, in their final joint collaboration with
Griffith.When they kissed each
other for about the thousandth time, it finally dawned on me that theirs is the
real love story at the heart of Orphans of the Storm, not the utterly forgettable pairings that spring
up between each of them and some dreary male suitors.The film ends with a clinch, but it’s between Louise and
Henriette, not between either of them and their men.